Friday, July 30

So Spurs are sniffing around Scott Parker, having already made an offer of £7 million. It's a familiar media line from Harry Redknapp, lots of protestations of innocence that of course he's not trying to unsettle the player, but of course he likes the lad, blah blah, Chas and Dave, etc.

We also have to question David Sullivan's statement last season that everyone had a price except Scott Parker. Which rather drew attention to how good Parker is.

Can we compete with Champions League football? Hopefully Parker will realise that Spurs might only be in it for two games and that at Spurs he'll be number two to Huddlestone and Palacios. Don't do it Scotty...

Monday, July 19

So we’ve made two signings at last, Mexican winger Pablo Barrera for £4 million and striker Frederic Piquionne for around £1 million.

We certainly need a winger rather than four central players trying to play a diamond, and Barrera had an impressive World cup when coming on for Mexico as a sub. Although it’s always risky buying players who’ve impressed in a World Cup as they came at inflated prices and often coast afterwards (remember Two Bob Florin and Ilie Dumitrescu, who were fantastic for Romania but not for us).

Another worry is that south Amercian players often find it difficult to settle in the UK; ie Javier Margas, Luis Jiminez and at Man City Robinho.

Piquionne scored 11 goals in all competitions for Portsmouth last season and looked impressive up front, although as Big Joe points out only five of them came in the league. But despite being 31 he looks a reasonably reliable striker to back up Cole and compete with Benni the pie-eater.

Looks like we might get Ben Haim too. A good player at Bolton but lost his way at Man City, Chelsea and Pompey so not sure about that one. And he’s a centre-back so we still need a right-back, unless we’re building a team around Spector. We should never have sold John Paintsil…

Friday, July 9

On page 59 of yesterday's Standard there'a a picture of Mark Noble, Carlton Cole, Junior Stanislas and Thomas Hitzlsperger medelling our new away kit while having a fry up at Casserati's cafe.

True, it might have been the cafe where Malcolm Allison and co discussed tactics, but they should surely have chosen Ken's Cafe for the fact that it saw the birth of fanzine Fortune's Always Hiding, is frequented by Phill Jupitus and some of the country's leading West Ham intelligentsia and Carol is the best manager we never had.

But on a positive note, it's good to see the pre-match diet has improved. We never got anywhere with all that steamed brocolli and pasta under Zola.

Tuesday, July 6

Some odd rumours in the transfer market. "West Ham have had an £11.2m bid for Nice striker Loic Remy turned down, according to Bordeaux president Jean-Louis Triaud," claims BBC.sport.com. If the financial situation is as bad as Sullivan claims it seems strange to be bidding this sort of money.

Meanwhile we're also rumoured to be after Brazil's wonderkid Naymur for a season before he goes to a "bigger club". Do we really want to be a feeder club? And he seems to be partly owned by a third party consortium, which you might think we'd avoid after Tevezgate.

The fear is that Sullivan and Gold will insist on marquee signings rather than the more sensible cheaper buys who ended up at Portsmouth under Grant. Bargains can still be found abroad; Roy Hodgson picked up Hangerland for £2 million.

Meanwhile Aston Villa are sniffing around Scott Parker… and we still need a right-back.